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Updated 24 Nov, 2011 06:54am

Iran warns West against using threat

“The West must learn one thing: do not threaten or try to use force against Iranians, and we'll stick to the principles of dialogue and compromise,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh said in a Tuesday interview with Euronews channel.

“The Islamic Republic has never been a threat to anyone in the world. The Iranians with their culture and ancient civilization have always sought dialogue with other civilization,” he added.

The IAEA Board of Governors adopted a controversial US-engineered resolution against Iran's nuclear program on November 18 that failed to win the support of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member nations.

Moreover, the resolution failed in its attempt to report Iran to the UN Security Council or setting a deadline for Tehran to comply.

Iran dismissed the report as “unbalanced, unprofessional, and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure mostly by the United States.”

“Iran is a responsible country and follows its commitments to the NPT (Non Proliferation Treaty). We will continue to cooperate, so visits and inspections [by IAEA] will continue in Iran,” Soltanieh pointed out.

Iran's IAEA envoy expressed regret that the Iranian nuclear issue, which is substantially a technical matter, has turned into a “complicated” political issue ever since it became the subject of debate in the UN Security Council.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to push for the imposition of sanctions on Iran.

Iran maintains that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, it has every right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never pointed to any evidence indicating that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapon production.

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